The Cowboy's Orphan Bride

“Reckon he will.”

She waited as he dismounted and then lifted the calf down. The baby latched on to nurse almost instantly. “Let’s wait a bit,” she said as Brad climbed back into his saddle. When he glanced around nervously and twisted the reins in his hands, she asked, “Why’d you decide to join a cattle drive?”

He bowed his head and shrugged. “Mr. McCain is somewhat of a legend down by San Antone, and I wanted to be like him.”

“Do you mean San Antonio, Texas?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of legend? Why would you want to be like him?”

“He’s the youngest trail boss ever. Been leading drives north for over six years. He started out as a cowboy, but within two years, was leading drives. Has been ever since.” With another shrug and while twisting the reins in his hands, he said, “Guessing I got more to learn than he did.”

“Some people take more readily to things than others.” Forgetting Garth might be easier if she knew a bit more about him. “How old was Garth—Mr. McCain when he became a trail boss?”

“Seventeen. Some folks didn’t believe it, but Mr. Johansson, that’s the rancher he worked for, said it sure enough was true. That Garth McCain was only seventeen when he became a trail boss. One of the best, too. If not the best.”

Seventeen. Garth had been fourteen when they’d traveled on the Orphan Train West together. The last time she’d seen him, when he’d been called out to the platform at the rail station, he’d told her he’d see her again. That she just had to follow the rules, be good, and that he’d find where she ended up as soon as he could.

That was a broken promise if there ever had been one. Had she known that he’d forgotten all about her, she wouldn’t have stayed here all these years. Waiting for him.

“That calf could nurse all day if we let him,” Brad said. “We best get moving again. I don’t want to be too late getting back. Gotta take my turn at night watch.”

“Of course,” Bridgette agreed. After the cow and calf were tranquilly following along, she asked, “How much is that cow worth?”

“Can’t say until we get to Dodge,” Brad answered. “On average the yards pay nine bucks for a young steer and eight for a heifer. But that’s an average. Some go lots higher and those were last year’s prices. Mr. McCain wants his cattle to be the first to arrive. That’s when the prices are the highest. Top dollar can go upwards of fifteen a head. By the end of the season, the prices drop. Course it also depends on the cows. McCain has good cows and doesn’t push them too hard. We came across some good grass and water near the state line and he let them eat and rest up for two days. We had time to do that because we left McCain’s place two weeks ahead of everyone else.”

“McCain’s place?” The bitterness that had set roots inside her turned to fury. “He has a ranch in Texas?”

Brad nodded. “Must be next to Mr. Johansson’s place. That’s where we headed out from. Maybe they’d partnered up or something. That’s how I figure it since these cows are McCain’s. Years past he’s driven cows north for Johansson. But not this year. This year he’s driving his own cows north.”

“Is that so?” Bridgette muttered, mainly to herself. Boy, was she mad now. Increasingly so. If Garth thought he could break his promise without retribution, he’d soon discover how wrong he was. After all, he’d been the one to teach her an eye for an eye.

Chapter Five (#ulink_d2c6aca9-e9a6-508d-8b3f-6c5ca9f8912e)

“Ain’t those about the best green beans you ever ate?” JoJo asked, dumping another spoonful onto Garth’s plate. “That little gal told me how to make them. Said to boil them until tender and then give them a toss in the frying pan with bacon grease. Cain’t believe I never thought of that before.”

Garth didn’t comment. He’d eaten the beans because whether he was hungry or not, he needed to eat, but couldn’t say he’d actually tasted a bite. The rest of his men had. The beans and the eggs had the entire outfit grinning and asking for third helpings.

His attention wasn’t on the men any more than it was on the food. It was on the horizon to the northwest, watching for Brad’s return. He still couldn’t see out of one eye, but the other one was doing better. His face wasn’t. JoJo had scraped off a generous amount of skin trying to get out the stinger. Garth had put a stop to the scraping, but not soon enough. Rather than burning from the hornet’s sting, the entire side of his face stung as if he’d shaved with a dull razor and no soap.

The pain though wasn’t what he was thinking about. It was her. That woman. She’d been snippy and uppity, and he just couldn’t get her out of his head. He hadn’t thought this long and hard about someone in a long time.

Actually, he’d only ever thought this much about one person.

Bridgette.

“You ain’t heard a word I said, have ya?”

Garth focused his good eye on JoJo.

“I didn’t think so,” JoJo said.

Handing his plate to the cook, Garth stood. “When you say something worth hearing, I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll just let it go in one ear and out the other.”

“You got that right,” JoJo said. “There ain’t nothin’ betwixt those ears in your noggin ’cept air. You oughta have a constant earache from the wind blowing through your head.”

Normally he gave JoJo back as much as the man gave out, but he wasn’t in the mood, and turned about.

“Where you goin’?” JoJo asked. “I was only telling you we got enough eggs for breakfast, too.”

“Good,” Garth replied. “I’ll go relieve the last two cowboys.”

JoJo mumbled something about being ornery as a snake before saying, “You cain’t even see yet, and no one’s expecting you to take over for them.”

Garth walked toward his tack. He was ornery some days. It was his nature. He doubted he’d been born that way, but for as long as he could remember, he’d been mad, and that alone was enough to leave a person ornery.

That didn’t mean he never laughed or had fun. Some of his earliest memories were of the big ships that docked in New York. The sailors were often willing to pay a penny for directions or to have a message delivered, and he and other boys spent a lot of time in that area, earning enough to buy a warm meal now and again. They’d had a lot of fun at the docks, especially teasing the laundrymen who washed the sailors’ clothes. Those men could run, and often chased him and the other boys with hot irons, threatening to turn them in to the officials.

They had never caught him, or turned him in—that had all been his own doing. His lesson in not thinking things through.

Garth swung the saddle over one shoulder and grabbed the bridle and blanket with his other hand. Spinning about, he all but ran over Bat. He hated only having one good eye.

“You want me to fetch you a horse, Boss?” the boy asked.

“I can do it,” Garth answered.

“No, he can’t,” JoJo said. “Go get him a mount, Bat.”

The horses were kept a distance away, between the cattle and the camp. His sight was good enough to walk that far, and good enough to keep an eye on the cows while the others came in to eat. He didn’t tell JoJo that. It would be a waste of breath, as had telling the truth all those years ago.

His capture, as he’d labeled it, had come about when he’d witnessed a man bludgeon one of those little laundrymen. He’d gone to the authorities and the man was captured, but had claimed the opposite. That Garth had done the bludgeoning. Because he’d been the one with blood on his clothes from dragging the laundryman into the back door of the laundry shop, he was the one arrested. The authorities hadn’t put him in jail, instead he’d been sent off to the Children’s Home at age eleven. The horror stories he’d heard had been true, at least in part. It was a prison for children if there ever had been one.

His second lesson in not thinking things through came about when he ran away from the orphanage. He hadn’t been an orphan, not then. His mother had worked in a crib close to the docks, but when he got there, she was gone. Turned out, she’d run off with a sailor as soon as she’d heard he’d been taken to the orphanage. As far as he knew, his mother could still be alive, living on some other continent. Gertrude, the woman his mother had shared a crib with had told him to go back to the orphanage, that it was where he belonged, and didn’t waste any time in alerting the authorities. It was only a matter of days before he was hauled back to the Children’s Home.

He was kept under lock and key, as were most of the others. When given the opportunity to go West on one of the trains, he’d jumped at the chance. And told Bridgette she should, too.

Unlike him, she’d lived most of her life at the orphanage, and believed her parents were coming back for her, some day. He knew that wouldn’t happen, and had told her so. She didn’t believe him and attempted to run away. Thought she could climb the big oak tree that had branches hanging over the back fence. She’d fallen instead and broken her arm.

In an attempt to keep her from doing that again, he’d snuck into the office and looked up the information they had on her. He’d found a baptismal record from a church on Staten Island and a note from her mother saying her husband had died and that she was too ill to take care of Bridgette. Another note stated her mother had died a few days later.

Looking back, Garth figured Bridgette had always known her parents had died, but hadn’t wanted it to be true. Hadn’t wanted to be an orphan. He could relate, and grinned at the memory of sitting beside her beneath the same big oak she’d fallen out of. It had been a cold fall day and the two of them had been assigned to gathering the dead leaves. She’d been mad about him sneaking into the office. Told him he could have gotten caught and then they’d never be able to go West.

That’s when the waiting had started. For both of them. Over a year of wondering if there would be room on the next train or not. Bridgette had come up with all sorts of wild plans of how they could sneak onto one of the trains, and he’d had to stop each one of them, telling her she had to think things through before jumping into action or she’d break another arm. She’d been frustrated, but conceded—until she’d come up with another harebrained idea that would threaten to get them both in trouble.

He’d been almost fourteen and she had just turned nine by the time they’d finally boarded a westbound train.

“Here you go, Boss.”